1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a paint roller holder.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typical paint rollers have a frame with a crank-shaped handle and a sleeve with a paint-carrying surface of absorbent material used to carry paint from a tray to a surface to be painted. When painting is finished before a period of non-use of the roller, such as at the end of the workday, the sleeve must be thoroughly cleaned of all paint before putting the paint roller away. Otherwise, the paint will harden on the sleeve, rendering the sleeve useless for further painting. If the painter intends to continue painting with the same paint after the period of non-use, such as during the next day, time spent in cleaning of the sleeve represents a costly loss of productivity and unnecessary waste of paint that is removed from the roller.
Containers for storing painting implements are known in art. Couch et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,992,617) discloses a foam insert contacting the painting implement to prevent its drying out while submerging the painting implement in paint. Most paint roller implements (frames) have metallic washers that lock the frame roller portion (the part that roller cover fits onto) to the frame handle portion. These handle portions are usually polished chrome plating over some type of metallic substrate. The chrome plating wears very quickly and exposes the metallic substrate. While the roller attached to the roller frame and is submerged, the exposed substrate and the metallic washers are introduced into the paint material. This in turn contaminates the paint with corrosion, which results in graying on the surface due to spinning the roller while the implement is in operation; or simple put, metallic gray lines while rolling the paint material onto the wall is visibly seen in white to light colors.
Other storage devices hold a roller that is removed from a roller frame. These devices include supports inside the storage devices, which engage the roller cover. While this type of construction may prevent the frame from coming into contact with the paint stored inside the device, the supports holding the roller cover leave impressions in the roller cover. The impressions in turn cause the roller cover to apply paint to a surface in an uneven manner, thereby adversely affecting the quality of the painted surface.